Ukrainians working at Western tech companies are banding together to help their besieged homeland, aiming to knock down disinformation websites, encourage Russians to turn against their government and speed delivery of medical supplies.
"Companies should try to isolate Russia as much as possible, as soon as possible," said Olexiy Oryeshko, a staff software engineer at Google and a Ukrainian American. "Sanctions are not enough."He was one of nine tech activists interviewed by Reuters who are of Ukrainian heritage or are Ukrainian immigrants and are responding to a call by Kyiv to form a volunteer "IT army".
"Given that even Switzerland took sides, I think it would be an important statement if Cloudflare would do the same," he wrote in an email to top executives, which he shared with Reuters. More than a dozen, among them security and web hosting providers, said they would do what they can. Some have dropped Russian customers or were considering doing so, according to replies shown to Reuters by Goloshuk, CEO of Brightest Minds, a company that helps businesses generate sales leads.
Google declined to comment. In recent days, it has barred Russian state media from advertising and distribution tools and increased safety measures for users in Ukraine. "They have the scale no one else has," said Igor Markov, a director of Nova Ukraine and a tech research scientist.
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